BLACKLINES ISSUE 2: CALL FOR CONTRIBUTIONS: Black British Writing: Questions of Time/ Space

In the forthcoming Issue, we intend to problematise Black British Writing as a body of work in relation to questions of time/ space. Achille Mbembe’s reminder that ‘half a century ago, most of humanity was living under the yoke of colonialism, a particularly primitive form of racial despotism’ offers a fruitful starting point, alongside the reminder that questions of time interlink with the spatial. In such light, what are some of the key temporal/spatial meanings with reference to early Black British writing? What allows us to take an adjective derived from ideas of a space, or mapped territory, and reimagine it as literary descriptor? More specifically, how does a set of attributes that connect territorial notions of Britishness,impact upon questions of time, whether in terms of periodisation or writerly concerns with temporality? How does Black British writing re-draw the borders of Britain and (re)present British time/ space? How does the earliest such writing present temporality/ spatiality to effectively transform the British literary landscape while bringing a different agency within which writers belonging simultaneously to other parts of the globe are visibly entangled in Britishness? What are some of the meanings/complexities of Black British racial moorings and the corresponding reluctance to seriously engage these within literary and other knowledges? Despite the long transnational history of Black British writing and thought, still too few gain the opportunity to study it. Rich in challenging established meanings, the writing tells of Black British subjectivity and lived experience in several periods of an intensified global movement. With particular attention to questions of space/ time, how might this body of work be contextualised, examined, and understood from differing theoretical perspectives including decolonial poetics,transnationalism, creolisation, planetary entanglement (Mbembe), human ‘Other’ (Wynter) and feminism(s)? Suggested papers might focus on writing by Gronniosaw, Equiano, Mary Prince, Phillis Wheatley, Samuel Ajayi Crowther, Philip Quaque. Letters and newspaper articles might be explored,as well as anonymous writing found in the archives, and differentiated temporalities, including Black women’s. To submit a proposed article, please send a brief Bio (100 words max) and an Abstract (800 words) to blacklines@gold.ac.uk by 30th June 2022. For creative submissions, please send a brief Bio (100 words max) and sample writing not exceeding 600 words.